Airborne monitoring of space weather and radioactivity

太阳会释放出高能粒子，其中一些粒子具有对自然和人工世界造成破坏的能力，尤其是在太空天气受到干扰的时候。在自然界中，当粒子进入大气时，它们会从空气中释放电荷，这被认为可能会对大气中的冰和水云产生影响。为了研究这种可能对气候影响不大的效应，需要测量云形成的大气中同一水平产生的电荷。一种经济有效的方法是使用气象气球，这种气球携带的测量系统是由世界各地的气象机构每天定期释放的，它已经专门装备了探测高能粒子的设备。该项目将测试一种新的低成本方法，利用气象气球进行高能粒子测量，这将使许多新的测量能够在已经投资于气象气球网络的额外费用很少的情况下进行。为此需要专门开发一些电子系统，但所研究的方法非常便宜，可以一次性用于不可回收的气象气球。在电子电路被开发出来并在实验室使用放射性进行测试之后，将进行一系列真正的试飞。通过选择两个不同纬度的地点，地球磁场对进入大气的粒子能量变化的影响可以用来测试新的传感器。另一个方面是，地表以上大气中的放射性也可以用同样的仪器简单地测量：由于这些气球可以很容易地从不同的地方释放，这提供了一种应对核事故和恐怖主义的能力，监测危险物质的扩散，而不需要动力飞机的复杂性。在俄罗斯，自1957年以来一直使用气球系统对高能大气粒子进行重要的测量序列，但是，由于这些仪器已经过时，预计在俄罗斯的科学资助范围内无法维持。通过改造气象部门日常使用的气球测量系统，对高能粒子的测量将能够以较低的成本继续进行，并提供监测自然放射性的机会。人们对自然放射性的认识日益提高。

The sun emits high energy particles, some of which have the capacity - particularly during episodes of disturbed Space Weather - to cause damage to the natural and artificial world. In the natural world, as the particles enter the atmosphere, they release electric charge from the air, which it is thought may have an effect on ice and water clouds in the atmosphere. To investigate this effect, which may have a small effect on climate, measurements of the charges generated at the same levels in the atmosphere where the clouds form are needed. A cost-effective way of doing this is to use a weather balloon which has been specially equipped to detect the high energy particles, as such balloon-carried measurement system are released by meteorological services around the world regularly every day.This project will test out a new low cost approach to harnessing weather balloons for the high energy particle measurements, which will allow many new measurements to be made at little additional expense to that already invested in the weather balloon network. Some electronic systems are required for this which will be developed specially, but the method to be studied is so cheap as to be disposable as needed for a non-recoverable weather balloon. After the electronic circuits have been developed and tested using radioactivity available in a laboratory, a series of real test flights will be made. By choosing two locations at different latitudes, the effect of the earth's magnetic field on changing the energy of the particles which get down into the atmosphere can be used to test the new sensor. An additional aspect is that radioactivity in the atmosphere above the surface can also be measured simply with the same instrumentation: as these balloons can be released easily from different places, this provides a capability to respond to nuclear accidents and terrorism, in monitoring the dispersal of the hazardous material without the complication of a powered aircraft.In Russia an important measurement sequence of high energy atmospheric particles has been made using balloon systems since 1957, but, as the instruments become obsolete, this is not expected to be sustained within Russian science funding. By adapting the balloon measurement systems already used by meteorological services everyday, measurements of the high energy particles will be able to be continued cheaply, as well as providing the opportunity to monitor natural radioactivity for which there is an ever-heightened awareness.